Page 17 of Dead to Me

That, Reid, is the university women’s boat club.And by the way, a lot of those young women go on to have professional rowing careers, so he wasn’t undervaluing me.

‘More national,’ I told him.‘I’m on the high-performance programme.’

‘Wow, nice.’Kit looked genuinely impressed by this.‘That’s basically my dream.Only with rugby.’

‘Oh, national stuff?’

Kit nodded.‘Five-year plan is to graduate then get a pupillage in some well-paying law firm while training so I have a backup.Probably get fired for not working enough hours…’

‘Aren’t you too pretty for professional rugby?’I asked him, grinning.

Kit laughed.‘I play at number seven.I don’t have to get my face involved too often.’

‘You could try using it as a distraction technique,’ I suggested.‘I’m pretty sure that’s how I’ve won several races.I get my game face on, it makes them laugh, they can’t concentrate… I win.’

‘OK, I need to see your game face now.’

‘I can’t just do it off the cuff,’ I told him indignantly.‘I’d have to be competing at something.’

Kit looked around.‘We could do competitive jumping.’

‘Oh, game on,’ I said.‘Are we doing distance?From a standing start?’

‘I think so,’ he said.‘Given there’s no bar to jump over.’

You will be able to predict entirely that at the prospect of a game to play I was totally all in and almost forgot what I was really there to do.Within seconds I was practising my crouching posture, planning how to get the best forward momentum, and working out whether I could sabotage Kit’s chances.

‘OK, I’m going to need some of your drink,’ I told him, straightening up after a few moments.

Kit handed it to me without complaint, and I sank at least half of it before saying, ‘Ready.’

Obviously, the game was enormous fun.I did, indeed, do my game face, which Kit found hilarious, and I beat him a couple of times, and got beaten a couple of times.We both fell over through overreaching and ended up laughing hard enough to not be able to breathe.

And of course, equally obviously, by the time we’d ended up laughing too hard to continue I’d passed whatever test he’d set for me.As I excused myself to go home, he said, ‘Thanks for crashing.See you soon.’

And I knew, at that point, that I was in.

8.Reid

Reid so very nearly didn’t answer the call.

It came at half four while he was pulling running kit on.He was rushing to get ready, impatient to finally leave the flat.

He’d been trying to go for this run since 8 a.m., but had ended up helping his DS out with intel on a stabbing (Reid somehow always ended up looking at the WhatsApp chat on his days off) and had then made the mistake of answering a knock at the door.It had proved to be his upstairs neighbour, Pjotr, needing help with his heating, which was stuck on.Cue two hours of Reid sweltering in what would have been a warm flat anyway as he tried to turn off a valve that was inexplicably boxed in behind a cabinet.He’d ended up sawing a misshapen piece out of the back of the cabinet, all the while thinking that Tanya would have done this better.That she’d always been the practical one.

After that, his parents had rung him for tag-team rambling conversations, and Reid had only just managed to get them off the line, answer another query from his DS and change into his kit when the new call came through.

He growled at the phone.He was itching to get out of the flat and into the twenty-six-degree afternoon.It was glorious outside, and the last thing he needed was yet another phone call.

This one wasn’t a number he recognised, though.A mobile that wasn’t saved into his phone.

That didn’t necessarily mean it wasn’t someone known to him.Reid had changed both his phone and his SIM eighteenmonths ago, and he was still occasionally getting flak for not updating people.People like Tanya’s friend Midda, or his cousin Pete.

He hesitated with the phone in his hand, briefly imagining one of his team in danger.Maybe he hadn’t saved the number of one of his new DCs.Maybe they needed him.

With an exasperated sigh, he answered the call.‘Reid Murray?’

‘Ah, Reid.I… Sorry to call out of the blue.I managed to get your number from your parents.It’s Seaton Laws.Anna’s father.’

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